Conventional medical care with respect to knee ailments and other joint ailments, such as arthritis, pain, meniscus tears, and others, often requires time consuming and costly treatments requiring numerous and routine patient visits to doctors, physical therapists, and other specialists. Typical treatments of osteoarthritis and other joint ailments may involve medication (e.g., analgesics), lifestyle modifications (e.g., restriction from certain activities), surgeries (e.g., joint replacements), physical therapy and so on. For example, a patient may work with a physical therapist in order to relieve pain or strengthen muscles around an ailing joint.
Although these treatments may alleviate suffering in a patient, they can be intrusive, time consuming, and, unfortunately in many instances ultimately ineffective. Further, typical treatments often seek to alleviate pain (e.g., medication) or remove the objects causing pain (e.g., joint replacements), rather than the making the appropriate adjustments, corrections, or modifications that may lead to the healing or improvement of affected and painful areas.
The most common device for facilitating the healing of various joints is a brace, or in a more primitive form, a splint. For example, there are many different types of knee and elbow braces that stabilize surrounding muscles in order to facilitate the healing process. Further, braces exist that are designed to insulate the joint and restrict the movement of a joint in order to allow the body to facilitate the healing process without causing further damage to joint. However, these braces merely assist in healing a joint by stabilizing a joint or surrounding muscles. They are generally not designed to contribute to the therapeutic care or healing of an ailing joint.
While aforementioned medical devices and treatments are generally suitable for a particular purpose, such devices are not sufficiently suitable for the purpose discussed in the present invention. Thus, it is clear that there exists a need in the art for a treatment device that overcomes these problems and progresses the state of the art, as well as one that provides there additional benefits enumerated in the present application.